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Daily industrial news and top headlines for plant and maintenance managers

NEW YORK (AP) — Tesla Motors Inc. said Monday its shares were priced at $17 each, above what it expected.
The electric car startup plans to launch its initial public offering of stock on Tuesday. The Palo Alto, Calif., company is offering 13.3 million shares, meaning it raised $226.1 million at the $17-a-share price.

SHANGHAI (AP) — Foxconn Technology, a supplier to Apple Inc., looks ready to build a huge new factory in north-central China despite the company's own misgivings about city-sized manufacturing facilities after a spate of suicides among its young migrant work force.
The company plans to recruit some 300,000 workers for the new plant, to be located in the Henan city of Hebei, according to a notice seen Tuesday on a local government website.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. federal aviation officials have known for years that cockpit window heaters in some Boeing planes catch fire. But they haven't required airlines to fix the problem, even after dozens of incidents that unnerved pilots and, in some cases, forced emergency landings.
Pilots have complained about heaters that burned, smoldered or sent electric currents dancing across cockpit windows since at least 2002, according to an Associated Press search of a NASA aviation safety database.

Omega Engineering (Stamford, CT) has developed the OM-CP-PHTEMP2000 series data logger, which is a battery-powered standalone pH and temperature data logger. A large LCD display is also standard. The logger collects data in real-time and features programmable engineering units, programmable start-times, and automatic temperature compensation.

STOKO Skin Care (Greensboro, NC) offers a variety of ethanol-based hand sanitizers for use when typical hand-and-soap washing is not possible or feasible, such as in industrial environments. The Gel Instant Hand Sanitizer provides rapid germ-killing activity when hand-washing facilities are not readily available.

A magnetic liquid level indicator from the Clark-Reliance Corporation (Strongsville, OH) has a unique design that addresses two serious problems that can be encountered with standard level indicators: boiling fluids and flashing vapors. The Jerguson Magnicator II FlashProof gages ensure an optimized magnetic field in close proximity to the indicator, transmitter, or switches.

Grote Industries (Madison, IN) has developed a new version of its Trilliant 36 LED WhiteLight Conversion Bulb, which is designed to operate in adverse conditions where sodium chloride, high humidity, and other corrosive elements wreak havoc on most PAR 36 incandescent work lamps.

"As manufacturing continues to decline, so does our ability to innovate. In the long term this means fewer well paid jobs, lower productivity, declining wages, declining living standards and low economic growth." - Mike Collins
People used to have stable, permanent jobs.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The BP oil spill has hammered the fishing and tourism industries along the Gulf of Mexico. But it appears the economic damage to the rest of the United States will be limited.
Analysts say the spill will reduce economic growth by only about one-half of 1 percentage point this quarter, and even less during the second half of the year.

BERLIN (AP) — A former executive at German truck and machinery maker MAN SE was convicted of bribery Monday for paying millions of euros (dollars) to secure a contract in Kazakhstan.
Heinz Juergen Maus, the former head of the MAN Turbo AG unit, was given a two-year suspended sentence and will have to pay a euro100,000 fine.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The circumstances around the fatal Middletown power plant explosion will be the focus of separate hearings Monday by a congressional subcommittee and a federal safety advisory board.
Members of both groups are traveling to Connecticut from Washington, D.C.

COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) — Refrigeration equipment manufacturer Kysor/Warren is expanding its Columbus operations and plans to add about 200 employees.
The company says the new hires are needed to meet an increase in demand this year. Kysor/Warren makes commercial refrigeration systems and display cases for supermarkets and is seeking to hire mostly manufacturing workers.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (AP) — A steel company is officially beginning work on a new Ohio mill talked up by President Barack Obama during an appearance last month.
A groundbreaking Monday was expected to bring Gov. Ted Strickland and other officials to V&M STAR in Youngstown. V&M's parent company is spending $650 million to add a 1 million-square-foot mill to its Ohio facility, a project the firm says will create as many as 750 temporary and permanent jobs.

NEW YORK (AP) — Tesla Motors Inc. begins selling stock to the public on Tuesday. The sale's success depends on how much investors are willing to bet on a car company that has never made a profit, sells a single vehicle and expects to lose money until at least 2012.
As for the car, it's electric — a kind of vehicle Americans have shown almost no appetite for — and it's very pricey.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Boeing workers in St. Louis have accepted a contract with the plane manufacturer, avoiding a strike that would have gone into effect Monday if the deal had been rejected.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said the contract passed Sunday by a vote of 1,237 to 838.

Tel-Tru Manufacturing Company (Rochester, NY) expands its Silicon Glass Fused Sensor Series of pressure transmitters, which are designed to operate safely in hazardous areas. The Tel-Tru P612 and P622 are intrinsically safe certified to Class I, Div. 1, Groups A, B, C, and D when used with approved zener barrier systems.

WEG Electric Corp. (Atlanta, GA) adds two new energy-efficient motors to its line: the Quattro and W22 Super Premium. The Quattro is a line-start permanent magnet motor that is more efficient than NEMA Premium efficiency induction motors. The motor operates at synchronous speed regardless of the load, and has the same frame size as an induction motor.

Professional Systems Associates (Panama City, FL) has developed the Process Workflow Engine (PWE) for its CMPRO software suite, which makes it easier to bring a company’s processes into the workflow of its product lifecycle management (PLM) activities. The new PWE can use conditional logic to control the workflow between steps and processes.

The TECAFORM AH ID polyoxymethylene copolymer from Ensinger (Washington, PA) contains an additive that makes it easily and quickly detected by metal detectors if broken pieces from machinery contaminate the product during processing. The TECAFORM AH ID provides security against contamination, and its resistance to chemicals and cleaning agents makes it ideal for use in food production of all kinds.

Although the health care reform bill was signed months ago, everyone seems to still be riffling through the pages trying to figure out what it means and where it’s probably gone wrong.
Earlier this month the AP reported that medical device manufacturers are “bristling” over a stipulation in the health care law that would add a tax of 2.